


those wings in your spine

by theherocomplex



Series: where some holy spectacle lies [1]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Melancholy, Pining, also, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 19:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13197231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex/pseuds/theherocomplex
Summary: The worst part, he decides on his way home, isn’t that they both know she’s joking, but that they both know he’s not.





	those wings in your spine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/gifts).



> Hail and well met! Please enjoy this piece of self-indulgence masquerading as an experiment and a character study. :D
> 
> Title from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21exnGWN-uI).

The first time really is a joke. 

Erend’s inhaled his fair share of smoke, nothing worse than a day at the forge, but add that to adrenaline and the utter conviction he’s going to die in some very bloody and horrible way in the next hour -- and, well, no one can blame him for a bad joke or two. People _expect_ that kind of thing from him. Or so Ersa always said. 

It’s just after one more timely application of brute force -- Aloy’s good, no, _great_ , at a lot of things, but she’s not of Oseram make -- 

See? Jokes. You can always count on him. 

\-- and it’s nice to get the ego boost, if he tells the truth. Always nice to be needed by a pretty girl, right? Especially when the pretty girl in question can do everything short of fly -- and if they live through this, Erend’s pretty sure she’ll manage that too, someday. Or, you know, tomorrow. 

Somehow, despite the world's best efforts, they end up surviving, and while they take half a moment to breathe, he looks at her, ready to ask what’s next, But she’s staring ahead, face blank as a cloudless sky, and he realizes she doesn’t know. 

She looks at him, just long enough for a shadow to pass over her face. Then her jaw firms up, some silent decision is made, and she starts to look away -- and Erend can’t, he can’t let this be how it goes. They’re going to die. Might as well go out laughing. 

He always planned to go out laughing, a drink in one hand and his hammer in the other, but he’ll take what he can get.

“You know, when things calm down, we should get married,” he pants, still trying to catch his breath.

“ _What_?” She looks almost horrified, under all the dirt and blood. And he thinks, _damn it, Aloy_ , because she looks good, too, so good it hurts in a way he’s just going to ignore for the rest of his incredibly short and painful life. Get her laughing, get her smiling. 

“Yeah, marry me,” he says, throwing his arms wide. “You know, if we live, and you still feel like doing the impossible.” 

She blinks at him. 

_One smile. Just one._

“I’ll put it on the list,” she says, a smile brightening her face like lightning. 

Then, she takes off. No goodbye, no orders, just the ruddy gold cloud of her hair disappearing around a corner. 

Erend finishes catching his breath -- _not_ because of the smile, even though that was damn great -- and hefts his hammer. His heart’s beating pretty hard for a man who’s standing still while there’s work to be done.

He scrubs a hand over his face. You don’t have to be a genius to know there’s a good time and a bad time to be thinking these thoughts, and since the only good time is when he’s about to drown these thoughts in a barrel of ale, it’s time to get to get moving. 

*** 

Erend lives, dirt and grime everywhere, reeking of blood -- mostly other people’s, just the way it should be -- and so do a lot of other good people. Meridian’s gouged and beaten, but it’s not broken, and as long as there’s a good forge and good people working it, cities can be healed. 

It’ll take longer for the people, and his throat keeps drying up whenever he starts thinking about all the work left to do -- but he’s there to do it, so what’s there to complain about? 

That’s what Ersa would have told him, only she’s not there -- and that’s a wound so raw he can’t touch it to bandage it -- so he tells himself: _Get to work. People need you._

He’s still trying to wrap his head around the whole _I-survived_ thing when he sees the crowd shift and a wave of murmurs builds all around him. His hand tightens around the shaft of his hammer, but he already knows there’s no new attack. There’s no screaming, which is usually a dead giveaway, just a quiet, reverent whisper that runs through the crowd like water. 

Only two people could be the reason, and since the Sun-King’s behind him, he knows who’s coming. 

There’s a gouge on her cheek, badly stitched up, and burns all over her arms, but she still looks so damn good he’d never have to drink again -- not ale, not even water -- if he could just keep staring at her. 

_Shit_ , he thinks. _Maybe it really wasn’t a joke_. 

*** 

It wasn’t.

***

So he tries to turn it into one -- _come on, marry me, Aloy! --_ and after a few more rumors of her adventures reach Meridian, it definitely sounds like one, at least to his ears. 

Erend knows who he is. He’s strong, if not the strongest, but he can outlast anyone in the Vanguard, blow for blow, any day of the week. He’ll take a blow for any of them, too, just like he would have for Ersa, just like she would have for him. 

He can outdrink them, too, but that’s not something he wants to brag about, not when the Sun-King turns a blind eye to the mornings he shows up to duty, bleary and growling. The fact Avad probably turns that blind eye for Ersa’s sake doesn’t help. 

But -- he’s strong, and if he’s not exactly smart, he knows when to shut up and listen, and when to jump in with a calm word. He’s good for a laugh, a song, and he’s loyal. And -- this might be the most important of all -- he can grin at death, and he can get everyone else to grin along with him. 

All good things, and they got him this far, but Aloy -- 

“I got a priest waiting, you know,” he tells her, a month after HADES bites it and Meridian's finally starting to breathe easy. “Any time you’re ready.” 

She laughs -- and damn her, it’s a great laugh, crinkled eyes and all -- but her eyes are on the horizon. This is just a resupply stop, in and gone in an afternoon. He’s lucky he got his two minutes. And no, he’s not going to think about how that makes him feel till he’s a few ales deep and she’s gone, miles away. 

He’s not going to think about how much he hates saying goodbye, either. 

“Well, it’s still on the list.” Aloy pats her quiver, then reaches up and squeezes his shoulder. “Time to head out. Take care of yourself, Erend.” 

He smiles, because he’s not going to load her down any more than she already is, and doesn’t think about what her hair would feel like between his fingers. “I’ll try, but it’s a full time job, taking care of all these louts.” 

“We can hear you, Captain,” yells one of the younger Vanguards, who’s about to get a lesson in why it’s impolite to eavesdrop. Erend doesn’t turn around, but keeps his eyes where they should be: on Aloy’s smile. 

“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full.” With one last squeeze, Aloy lets go, and adjusts the straps of her pack. “Be seeing you.” 

“Safe travels,” Erend says, a little embarrassed over how proud he is that he managed to not say everything else, and then makes himself walk away before she’s passed out of sight. “And you, smart mouth, follow me. Got a special duty for you.” 

The barrack latrines are never as clean as they are after Aloy visits. So that’s one benefit to her leaving, right? 

So he tells himself, when he’s three ales in, and still able to lie to himself. 

*** 

Erend needs the reminder that he can still build something, now that the fires are out and he finally has to face up to never seeing Ersa again. So he builds houses when he's off duty: hauling bricks up from the plain to the elevators and mixing mortar, and when they've got enough bricks and enough mortar, he goes to the forge, and helps to make enough locks for a reborn city. 

It's honest work, dirty work, and so long as there's still another house to build, he doesn't think about drinking, doesn't think about anything beyond getting the day's work done so he can slide into a hot bath and then fall facedown into the nearest soft surface. 

He stands his round every night, keeps his men laughing while they train. Ersa would be proud of him for this, Erend's sure of that. 

In the last days of Meridian’s rebuilding, Avad gifts Aloy with a little house on the southern end of the city. It’s not much, but it has a balcony, and they can sit outside and drink mead and watch the Glinthawks wheel in the sky. Erend hasn't told her, won't ever tell her, but he helped lay the foundation himself, because even if she's only there one day out of a hundred, it's going to be built right. Something solid to come back to, whenever she wants. 

Aloy comes and goes without paying attention to the seasons. She just appears, lean and sun-burnished, hair full of knots and burrs, and her packs full of trinkets Erend can’t look at the way he used to, knowing what he does about where they came from. 

She’s not forthcoming, Aloy, but she talks to him, slow and halting, about all the wonders she’s seen, and what came before. The great metal cities with their towers swallowed by the clouds, the webs of communication stretched across the entire world, the seas wide and blue and cold. 

“It’s hard to imagine this wasn’t always here,” he says, knowing how stupid it sounds. The man he used to be, the man who looked at the Nora like they weren’t much better than kids, is long gone. The Nora sitting next to him has seen a lot more than he’s ever going to. “All those cities, all those _people_. Gone.” 

Aloy nods. She’s turning a round disc over in her hands, the shiny side catching the torchlight and sending it dancing over the walls and floor. “Not completely gone,” she says. “You wouldn’t believe what’s out there, Erend. The ruins are just the start, there are cauldrons, there’s --” She catches her lip in her teeth. “There’s so much,” she finishes, not looking at him. 

Erend looks out at the city lights below them, and the villages beyond. He used to think he was quite the traveler, a _worldly_ man, and quite a match for one Nora huntress just starting to look beyond her own lands. Truth is, he never was, and never would be. He can’t imagine the world-that-was Aloy carries around in her head, a map she’s expanding, step by lonely step. 

_Now I’m just projecting. She’s not lonely._

But she’s tired, he can read it in the line of her neck and the way she holds her head. And the mead has run out, so he stands up and starts to say his good nights when Aloy clears her throat. 

“I’m heading out again in the morning,” she says, still turning the disc over and over, still not looking at him. “Might be a long trip this time. I’ll be gone through the spring, I think.” 

A chill settles around Erend’s shoulders. Six months or more, without her. 

A lot can happen in six months. A lot does, here in the city. He tries not to think about Aloy trudging through hip-deep snow alone, and fails. 

A lot can happen out in the wilds, too.

“Well, if you get bored, you know where to find me. And I’ve got that --” 

She laughs, and tosses the disc at him as she bounds to her feet. “Yeah, I know. You’ve got the priest. Hope you’re not paying him by the hour.” 

“Shit. Now that you mention it.” 

She laughs again, bold and clear. “Better go get that fixed up, Erend. Can’t have the Captain in debt. What would Avad say?” 

“He’d say, _Again_?” 

“All right, go on.” Aloy’s still smiling, but she’s also herding him toward the door. 

“You still haven’t answered --” 

“It’s on my list, Erend, now _go_.” 

She’s laughing as she says it, which is the only reason why he doesn’t ask again. 

***

He goes, and though his feet try to turn him toward the alehouse, he makes it home without stopping. 

It’s not like he has to drink, he tells himself, as he pulls off his armor and hangs it on its stand. He just _likes_ to, maybe a little too much, but, well -- he just won’t, for a while, Maybe till Aloy gets back. 

Instead, he sits on the edge of his bed and turns the disc so it catches the light, and when his head is empty, he douses the torches and goes to sleep. In the morning, he stuffs it into a drawer, and tries to forget about it.

He doesn't, but it's a distraction from not forgetting about Aloy. He'll take it. 

***

Erend's big resolution makes it all of two weeks. He should feel ashamed when he takes his first drink, but what he feels is a strange kind of relief: being a screw-up's familiar, the way not drinking might never be.

He’ll do better next time, he tells himself. But next time, it’s only three days, and then he _does_ feel ashamed, and small, and useless, He tries not to think about letting Ersa down, and fails that, too. 

_Next time_ , he thinks, teeth gritted. _Next time._

***

With the bulk of the reconstruction done, Erend spends the winter training himself and training his men, and most of his free time scouting outside the city -- can’t drink if you can’t get to an alehouse, right?

The world may not have ended, and the machines may be mostly harmless, but there are still plenty of bandits and slavers wandering around, and putting some righteous fear into them’s a nice way to avoid thinking about all the drinking he’s not doing, and all the Aloy he’s not seeing. 

Erend hasn’t let himself count the days, because he may be pathetically in love with the most unattainable woman in the world, but he’s not _actually_ pathetic. But the winter is almost over, now, and he can’t help watching the roads for her, coming home with her hair flowing behind her like a banner. 

There’s a bandit camp three days out from Meridian that’s mostly restricted itself to raids against other bandits. Erend decides to leave them alone while he deals with more immediate opportunists, as a reward for creative thinking, and they return his generosity by attacking a merchant convoy from Mainspring. Everyone gets away alive and mostly unharmed, but he’s pissed enough — more at himself than the bandits — that he leads the squad to clear them out, _personally_. 

The bandits are well-fortified, well-supplied -- because of the Oseram convoy -- and well-trained, but Erend isn't just pissed but lonely _and_ sober, so what follows is truly an ass-kicking to remember. 

Sure, he takes a few good hits -- they got a sniper up on one of the towers, and if one of his men hadn’t tackled him out of the way, the arrow would have landed in his gut instead of his calf. Gut-shot is a bad, bad way to go, and mentally Erend makes a note to keep that Vanguard off latrine duty, no matter what the man says next time Aloy comes around. Always show gratitude, even if they don’t know it. One more of Ersa’s practices he’s kept going. 

After the better part of the afternoon, the fight’s over, and with none of his men dead. It’s a good day, and Erend’s almost happy when he leaves half his squad behind to hold the camp while the rest head back to Meridian. The King’ll be pleased they’ve got a ready-made new base, and the merchants will be happy it’s right along the trade road, so everyone can be pleased and happy together, and maybe Aloy will be back when he gets there. 

He knows she won’t be, but it’s nice to think about while his calf keeps smarting with every step. It’s even nicer to think about coming home and finding her tinkering at his table, a thousand new things to tell him while he rebandages his leg, and a promise that she’ll stay the night. They’d eat dinner, listen to the city getting quieter around them, and -- 

It’s monumentally stupid to daydream about this. Erend's getting better at knowing when to cut his losses -- it’s a necessary skill, in his line of work -- and the smart thing to do is to cut them now, before the daydreams turn into hopes and he ends up _actually_ asking Aloy to stay. One night, a year, a lifetime -- it’s pointless. She’s the only one who can get the world even a little closer to what it was, to what it could be, and she belongs out there, her steps always falling on new ground. 

He’s got no right to take any of that from her. 

“Your leg’s bleeding again, Captain,” says one of his men. 

*** 

Aloy is there when he gets back, wonder of wonders, thinner than ever and with half-healed burns all over her hands, but she smiles when she sees him and that night they go eat fresh boar roasted with peppers and grain and he makes her laugh until her eyes spit tears with his training stories. They’re still talking when the sun comes up the next morning. 

Of course, she’s leaving later that day, to track down rumors of another cauldron and something called a _databank_ , but they have the night, and once more Erend feels like he could never drink again, so long as she just stays. 

It’s not healthy or fair to think that — nobody needs that on their back, least of all Aloy. He shoves the feeling away, and drinks jug after jug of hot, spiced tea with Aloy instead. 

“Will your leg slow you down?” she asks, nudging his foot with hers. “That looks pretty bad, Erend.” 

“Nah, it hurts now, but it’ll heal clean. I’ll have the healers check it again in a day or so, just to be on the safe side.” He leans back in his chair. The square’s dark enough that he can stare at the clean lines of her face without anyone else noticing, and if Aloy cares, she hasn’t said a word. 

Four years Erend’s known her, four years he’s -- _shit_ \-- dreamed of her, and he’s still not tired of looking at her. He doesn’t think he ever will be. But by this time tomorrow, she’ll be gone, and his life will just be duty, training, and trying not to let Ersa down. Oh, and trying not to think about Aloy, and trying not to drink to keep from thinking about her. Simple goals, right? 

“Good plan.” She nods, then leans back too. Her burned fingers trace the edge of the table. “Erend, I should --” 

He waves her words away. “Yeah. Get to the markets before they’re full, I get it.” 

Even now, she hates the noise. He doesn’t mind it, but he can see how a Nora -- a Nora outcast -- would. Better she gets an early start. The square’s starting to fill, merchants filtering up from the villages, night workers heading home. 

“It was good to see you,” Aloy tells him as she stands. “Just stay careful out there.” 

“Isn’t that my line?” He stands up too, tosses a double handful of shards on the table. 

“I mean it.” Her eyes meet his, warm and gold. “Take care of yourself, Erend.” 

Fire and spit, he wishes she could have met Ersa. 

It hurts, it hurts _so much_ to smile and promise he’ll be safe, while she’s heading out alone, _again_ , and there’s nothing he can do. Erend hasn't doubted for a single moment Aloy could handle anything the world threw at her -- he’s seen with his own two eyes she can -- but what if? What if she needs something, someone, and no one is there? 

“You too,” he manages in the end, as the noise of the square swallows them. 

Aloy rests her hand on his arm for a moment. Her skin is warm and dry, rough at the knuckles, coiled strength in every muscle. She doesn’t need anyone, definitely not a lovesick Oseram who’s still drunk two nights out of seven. 

But hey, it’d be just as nice if she wanted him.

She lets go and walks away, heading deep into the market. Erend watches, something heavy shifting in his chest, and opens his mouth. 

“Hey.” Aloy turns, braids falling heavy past her shoulders, just before the crowd fills the space between them and she’s gone. “Any time you want to come make an honest man of me, I’m ready to be convinced.”  


Aloy grins, her eyes bright. “It’s on my list,” she calls, and waves one last time before she walks out into the market. 

***

The worst part, he decides on his way home, isn’t that they both know she’s joking, but that they both know he’s not. 

***

It’s not like he sits around moping every time she's gone. Still a lot of bandits to clean out, still rebuilding to accomplish, still hopeless recruits to turn into Vanguards. He has a rough few days when Avad gets married, and his pathetic hopes Aloy'd turn up for that get smashed like bits of glass. 

When he crawls out of the ale barrel two days later, he tells himself, _Enough_. Ersa would kick his ass all the way back to the Claim if she was alive, and since she's not, he'll kick it himself. So he makes his apologies to Avad in private, and then pays his respects to the new Queen, who's short and dark-eyed and clearly more than a match for any man in the city, including her husband. If she pities Erend, she doesn't show it. 

"We all wish she could have been here," Avad tells him as he leaves the palace. "But she has her work, and we ours, Erend. Remember that."

Erend figures Avad meant to be reassuring, so he nods and shakes the Sun-King's hand, and doesn't punch a single wall on the way home. Progress, right? 

There was always the possibility Aloy would never come home. Maybe she found whatever -- whoever -- she was looking for, some relic of the past that wasn’t quite as dead as all the others, and stayed to bring it back to life. Maybe she found somewhere quiet, to hunt and listen. 

Maybe she just kept walking, to the end of the world, and into whatever lay past that. 

She could be doing anything, but she hasn’t stopped. Aloy won’t stop. 

But he worries, all the same, about the _what if._

***

Varl shows up with a Nora trade delegation as summer winds down into autumn, and showing him the sights Meridian has to offer is about the best distraction Erend could ask for. About halfway through, they blow off the negotiations to go hunt a rogue Stormbird that's been tearing up villages to the north. 

"Have you seen Aloy lately?" Varl asks, while they're hunkered down in a blind waiting for the damn bird to show up. 

A fresh wind keeps kicking up billows of sand, half of which seems to end up in Erend's boots, so he's not exactly in the mood to play the question game. He takes his time shaking out his helmet before trying for a normal response. 

"About three months ago," he says. "She came in to resupply, then went off again. Not sure where." 

Varl's pretty canny, even by Nora standards, but there's no missing the way he slumps a little. "She came through Mother's Rest not too long ago, but she left before the Proving. Didn't have much chance to talk then." 

Are they _really_ having this conversation? Erend squints into the sand clouds. Any time this bird wants to show up and let him bash its wings off is a good time for him. "I can see why she…might not want to stay for that," he says, once he realizes Varl's waiting for him to reply. 

The Nora makes a non-committal noise and goes back to checking his bow. Erend tries to ignore the sand, which is now in his blasted trousers, and listens for the screech of metal on metal. 

"It's hard, never knowing," Varl says. "But it's worth it, right?" 

They definitely _are_ having this conversation, but there's no jealousy in Varl's voice. Erend chances a look in his direction, and finds Varl half-smiling at him. "It is," he says, warily.

"Thought so." Varl notches an arrow, the point glittering in the sand-choked air, and keeps smiling. 

Erend waits for whatever's next, which is probably an expansion on the topic of worthiness, and how they do or don't meet certain standards, but Varl just watches for the Stormbird, silent. 

There's not going to be a talk about worth or what they deserve. Varl's said all he wants to, and that means — 

"I'm still that obvious?" Erend asks. 

Varl bursts out laughing. The notched arrow doesn't waver. "Worse than ever, friend. Where _is_ this bird?" 

_Friend._ Erend mulls that over, finds he likes it. "I don't feel like waiting around anymore," he says, reaching for his hammer. "You?" 

Varl's smile is a curved blade, bright and deadly. 

***

Turns out there's not just one rogue Stormbird, but three of them. Not a great surprise, but beating the shit out of a pile of bloodthirsty circuits and wires keeps him from thinking about Aloy, and trying not to embarrass himself by doing something as moronic as dying keeps him from thinking about anything at all. 

At the end of the day, the Stormbirds are in pieces, plenty of trophies for both of them. Erend's pretty sure Varl took a hit for him that would have taken his head off if it had landed true, so he lets the Nora have first pick, and stands for every round when they get back to the city. 

"Hey, not like I'm not getting laid, might as well help you out," he says, when he hands Varl another mug of ale. 

"You turned down the last two people who asked," Varl points out as he takes a sip. "I told you, worse than ever."

*** 

Varl's solid as iron, even if he does drink like a Nora, and the trade delegation ekes through without any major disasters. They promise to meet the next summer, for a _real_ hunt, and part with enough back-slapping and laughter to please any Oseram. 

Then the winter stretches out, dry as sand and about as appealing, without even a rogue Glinthawk to liven things up. Erend sets himself to the usual business of protecting the city and its villages, but most bandits know to stay well clear of anywhere he might hear about them, and the ones stupid enough to give it a try are also too stupid to put up much of a fight. 

"We need better enemies," he tells the Sun-King one night. That gets him a stranger look than usual, but also the pleasant surprise of rendering Avad speechless. Queen Lesa jumps in with a story about how she once beat off two Scrappers with a hoe — Erend's still debating if she got switched at birth and is actually Oseram — and then they're all laughing, and he can ignore the tightness at the back of his neck, the drought in his throat. 

He just needs _something_ to do, other than waiting for something to go wrong, but when he tries to join up with a work crew fixing the roads, Avad oh-so-gently reminds him about how appearances aren't served by the Vanguard Captain filling in potholes. 

Meridian is bigger than ever, but Erend can't quite help feeling like a badly made key that can't fit into a single lock. Maybe he's just finished growing up, and he should enjoy the peace. 

He tries, he fucking _tries_ , but that feeling grows, and then he's sliding back into his old stool, hating himself with every swallow, and the only thing to be glad about is that he's too drunk to dream, about Aloy, about anything. 

Avad says nothing when Erend's late to two morning briefs in a row, which is somehow worse than any amount of kingly disapproval, and so Erend says _enough_ one more time. It's like clawing his way out of a hole while someone keeps dumping soil on his head, but he sticks to it, best he can. One day at a time. 

He's still ready to go start a brawl or two himself, just to give his men something to do, bored Vanguards being dangerous Vanguards, after all. 

Because they're the considerate sort, they do him the courtesy of starting one themselves, and he lets it run till the fight spills out of the alehouse and into the street before he wades in, grabbing anyone in reach by the scruff and tossing them back toward the stairs. There's a couple hot blooded ones, as always, and they get their swings in - these fights are useful for getting rid of grudges against the Captain, too - and he's got one in a headlock while another tries to punch his kidneys out through his gut. 

It's a toss up between knocking both their heads together or trying to reason with them, but in the end he goes with bashing them out and dropping them against the building, where their friends can drag them back to the barracks. He takes a look around to gauge collateral damage, then wonders when he turned into the kind of man who thinks about that in front of an alehouse.

Wondering that takes him back to Dervahl's workshop, and the worst noise he's ever heard, and then all the itching tension the fight got rid of comes crawling back. He smells Oseram brew, leaking from a broken barrel, and there's a stool at the bar that's probably still got the shape of his ass in it. One drink wouldn't hurt. 

Erend swallows, swallows again, and turns away. 

"Back to the barracks," he says, his voice scratching out of a dry throat. "You two," he tells the hot bloods, "stay and clean up the mess."

He leaves a purse of shards - his estimate was damn near dead-on, good for him for being prepared - and points his feet toward home, only to hear his men start laughing.

_Well, then, who else needs a beat down,_ he thinks as he turns back, and sees Aloy a few feet behind him, hip cocked and wearing blue Carja silks that makes the gold in her eyes gleam. 

And now he's the kind of man who notices eye color. 

"This looks...bracing," she says, ignoring the Vanguards nudging themselves behind him. "Should I be sorry I missed it?" 

"I could start another fight if you want," he offers, "but I think we both know you could do a lot better."

It is one of the few and first times in his life he hasn't gone for the innuendo on purpose. Which means one of his men makes a kissing sound, and then someone shouts _Show her your hammer, Captain!_ , and that's it, he's going to murder all of his men in their sleep. 

Aloy looks away to hide a smirk, and Erend looks around for a sinkhole to fall into. Since none are available, he jerks his head toward the market, and Aloy nods. As they walk away, shoulder to shoulder, Erend points at the mess, and watches his men jump to work without a word. 

"Impressive," says Aloy, bumping him with her shoulder. "But you're sure I'm not taking you away from…whatever _that_ is?" 

"Oh, I'm sure." Erend bumps her back. "You know, I think that priest is still awake, if you're not busy." 

That gets the same smile it always does; a little worn at the edges, maybe, but as long as she keeps smiling, he'll keep making the joke. It's good to have a routine, right?

"I've got a few things to do first," she says. "Come on, let's get some food." 

***

An hour later, they're both fed and Aloy's got the look that means she's about to ask a question he's _really_ not going to enjoy. Since his options are limited to pretending there's a special Vanguard emergency only he can handle, he's stuck at the table, no matter what comes out of Aloy's mouth. 

And because it's Aloy, it's a question that punches the air right out of him. 

"Do you ever think about having a family?" 

Erend focuses on digging a splinter out of the edge of the table while he turns that one over. No doubt she's got her reasons for mining that particular vein, but he's got even less of an idea of what's going on inside her head than usual. Aloy's funny about families, even funnier about Rost, and Erend's never pressed her on it, because even he's smart enough to know that you don't scrounge for details when the word "outcast" figures so heavily into someone's childhood. Which is a little sad, because from what little she's told Erend about the man, he's ten times the father Erend had. Not that it's hard to be better than nothing. He wishes he could have met Rost, almost as much as he wishes Aloy really could have known Ersa. 

That's the air punched out of him for the second time in as many minutes. He doesn't wonder quite so often if Ersa would be proud of him, but the colossal unfairness of knowing Ersa won't get to see what Meridian's becoming, the kind of world Aloy's bringing to life, still burns, always will. 

Maybe this is grief, a bitter taste that never stops lingering in the back of his throat, and a wound reopening forever. 

Aloy tilts her head, her face falling half into shadow. In another moment, she'll change the subject and never ask him again, because she never presses on a bruise if she can avoid it, but Erend's obscurely certain she's not just testing him, but herself, too. 

_But how? Why_?

"Sometimes," he admits, when Aloy's been staring at him in silence for almost a minute. She's got this way of watching whoever she's talking to, all her attention focused on you and what you're going to say, and Erend loves it even if it makes him feel naked, and not in a fun way. "I always figured it would happen, when the time was right. It'd be nice, bunch of kids running around, a big house, someone to — but there's always something else to do, so…now I don't know. I'm getting a little old for anything other than being a Vanguard." 

And that's more than he ever admitted to anyone, even Ersa. He really needs to figure out how Aloy always manages to trick him into being so damn honest. At least he didn't start talking about his damn father. 

"At least I'm aging well," he says, a beat too late, but Aloy doesn't point it out. "Like a fine wine." 

The closest Vanguard snickers a little at that, which means someone's getting latrine duty in the morning, but Erend's too surprised by how much the truth stings to call the man out. He _is_ getting old, in so many ways. 

She stands up, graceful and sure-footed, and gives his shoulder a firm, warm squeeze as she passes. "Can't argue with that. Good night, Erend." 

He reaches up, driven by some wordless urge, and holds on to her fingers. She's leaving; Erend knows without her having to say anything, and he can't help wanting some reassurance that she was here to begin with before she's gone again. 

"Be safe," he says, instead of some idiot version of the usual joke. Its time passed when he wasn't paying attention, when he was trying to get hold of this growing-up thing and Aloy was out saving the world, _again_. Now he just wants her to stay a moment longer. 

Aloy shifts, and spreads her fingers wide across his shoulder. "Erend —" He hears her swallow, and then sigh. His chest aches. "You too," she says, her voice faint as smoke. 

He lets go first, which might be the most impressive thing he's ever done in his life, and then Aloy's gone, not even a footfall marking her passage. 

***

She's gone for three years. 

*** 

Erend does _not_ let himself mope. Still bandits to clean out, still rebuilding to accomplish, still hopeless recruits to turn into Vanguards. 

And — it’s not like Erend hasn’t had his chance, or chances, to move on, because what's the point of being alive if you're not going to, well, _live_? He’s not Carja-handsome, maybe, but he’s strong, and loyal, and funny. He still knows when to shut up and listen. People like that. When someone catches his eye, he’s happy to follow the thread as it unspools, as far as it goes. He does his best not to compare, because he's an ass but he's not a bastard, and it works. Mostly. 

Aloy fades into the distance; he almost forgets what her laugh sounds like, what it's like to watch her making arrows. Months go by where he barely thinks of Aloy, except to wonder where she is, what peaks she’s scaling or what new darkness she’s exploring. She must be impossibly far away by now, way out past the edge of the map, but that’s where she belongs. Maybe. She’s not meant for the city, but for the world. So he’s happy, imagining her surrounded by green fields, an arrow notched at her bow. 

But then another rumor will hit Meridian, about how the Nora Seeker was sighted climbing a Tallneck to the north, or diving into the black waters of a half-frozen lake. And then he's right back where he started, imagining her hunting or running, knocked breathless by the force of memory. There are weeks when he can’t stop dreaming of her, sunburned and laughing on some mountain he's never seen before. There are people who will read your dreams for a handful of shards down in Meridian Village, but Erend never bothers to ask. 

*** 

Somewhere near the end of the second year, Erend finally gets his drinking by the throat, and while the temptation to sink into the ale is always there, he doesn’t wake up sweat-sodden and miserable anymore, and that’s reward enough to keep him to just the toasts after a victory. The temptation’s a hungry thing, patiently waiting in the back of his throat, but he’s better at ignoring things. Had lots of practice, over these last few years. 

And the victories keep coming, but now they look less like battles won and more like new trade routes, more safe villages, more maps. 

The world’s getting smaller, which means fewer places for bandits to hide, and less work for him. Not that he’s sorry to see things getting safer, because what’s he been working for if not that, but even Meridian feels small now, and it used to feel like the entire world. 

_I could leave_ , he thinks, half-listening to Talanah telling a story about three snapmaws, a goose egg, and a hornet’s nest that’s too unbelievable to be a lie. _Go back to the Claim. Or maybe south, down to the waters. I could go anywhere._

But he’d be looking for Aloy, no matter where he went, so what’s the point? At least here, he’s doing good work while he tries to let go of waiting for her. That’s what he’s been doing, these seven years. Waiting for her to decide this was home, to decide he was who she wanted, and it’s time to let go. Cut his losses. The world isn’t so small yet that it can’t swallow a single Seeker, and if she hasn’t come back now, she won’t be. 

A light, warm hand falls on his shoulder, and he jumps so high he sloshes half the tea across his chest. 

“Hi,” says Aloy, right at his ear. 

***

She wears the miles -- and there must be a damn lot of them, Erend wants to hear about every one -- better than most, but her nose is crooked from a bad break, and she’s missing the top half of one ear. There’s probably a hundred other scars he can’t see, but she’s alive, standing at his side on the balcony of her dusty little house. 

He always thought about visiting it, but never did. What would have been the point, if she wasn’t there? Besides, he was forlorn and heartsick enough, without turning her house into some weird shrine. So it’s full of dust and forgotten artifacts, but Aloy doesn’t seem to mind. She just dropped her sack at the door, sighed, and headed for the balcony. 

“It’s good to see you,” Erend tells her, which is just the beginning of the truth; the whole truth is that it’s so damn fine to see her he can barely breathe. Somewhere in those three years she cut her hair short, and it’s grown out into ragged, messy waves that just beg for his fingers, but her Focus still gleams at her ear, a silent warning, so Erend keeps his damn hands to his damn self.

“It’s good to be here.” She stretches, groaning as her back cracks. Erend keeps his damn eyes on the damn sky, but even the glimpse he gets of her from the corner of his eye is enough. Still lean, still strong. Still Aloy, bright and clear and beautiful. “I’m sorry it was so long, this time. I tried to find a way to send word, but...well, when I found a way, there was nothing here that could have received it.” 

It’s a kick in the teeth to think about how far away she must have been. “But you’re here now.” 

“That I am -- and for a little while, too. I need a rest.” Now she’s looking at him, her gaze warm on the side of her face. “But most of all, what I need is _food_. Feel like dinner? I’ve got the shards.” 

“You know me, free food I don’t have to cook is my favorite kind.” 

She laughs, eyes crinkling, and waves him toward the door. It’s scary, how easily he falls, every damn time. 

_Think about it later. When she’s gone_. 

Because it’s coming, that next goodbye. Better to enjoy the time he’s got while he has it. 

*** 

One week turns into two, and then two weeks turn into a month. Erend’s too busy supervising a new squad of recruits -- fun fact, they never get less hopeless -- to see much of Aloy, though he knows she sees Avad almost every day. Sometimes, she disappears with Talanah for a day or two, comes back laughing and weighted down under the bodies of their kills. Once, they show up smeared with honey from head to toe, but reeking of fish, and neither of them will tell Erend what happened.

“Sworn to secrecy,” Talanah says with a perfectly straight face, while Aloy politely asks if someone could lend her a comb. “We’d tell you, Captain, but then we’d have to kill you.” 

One month becomes two. Aloy shows no sign of leaving. She keeps her hair short, except for a long beaded braid she winds around her head like a crown. Erend definitely does not miss how half the Carja nobles imitate her, even if Aloy is cheerfully oblivious. 

And she _is_ happy. That’s impossible to miss. She trades, she hunts, she visits the villages, but other than her hunting trips, she’s back each night, tucked away in her little house in the south of the city. 

“It surprises me that she lingers,” says Avad, with a meaningful look in Erend’s direction. “She must have journeyed far, to stay so long in Meridian.” 

Erend nods. Every day, he wakes up, ready to hear Aloy say that she’s leaving again, and each night, he goes to sleep without her breathing so much as a word of her intentions. 

It’s too much to hope, so he doesn’t. She’s here, and it’s enough to see her walking through the city, always with a moment -- no, _two_ \-- for him when their paths cross. 

Avad taps his finger on his throne, eyebrows raised, then turns the subject to the construction of a new trade outpost along the western route. It’s been long enough that Ersa’s ghost no longer crowds the space between them, and almost as long since Erend felt like he was stealing her place at the Sun-King’s side. He traces the edge of the map, almost absently, and wonders what Aloy knows about the lands beyond. Maybe he’ll finally get around to asking, next time he sees her. 

*** 

“So,” says Aloy. Then she pauses, long enough for Erend to look up from his meal and give her a curious look. Aloy doesn't pause, doesn't hesitate. Once she’s decided to do or say a thing, she does or says the thing, and that’s all there is to it. He’s not used to her being anything other than a well-aimed arrow. 

“So,” he replies, then bites off another mouthful of bread. They stopped at his favorite seller, the one who stuffs the loaves with peppers and pork, and after two days of training exercises, he’s hungry enough to eat five. Aloy is still picking at her first one. 

“I’m leaving at the end of the week,” she says, in the end. 

_Fire and spit. Shit_. _Shit_. Erend swallows his mouthful half-chewed, almost wishing he’d start choking as a way out of what’s coming next. This is new — Aloy usually just says, _I'm leaving tomorrow_ , and he doesn't even have time to get worked up over how much he'll miss her. He realized a long time ago how much of a kindness that was, even if it wasn't deliberate. "Yeah?" he says, like an idiot. 

“A friend got in touch.” Erend swings wildly from jealousy to depression to _oh_ when she raises her hand to her Focus. “It’ll take a while to get to her, but she needs help, and...so do I.” 

“What kind of help?” 

Aloy peels a long strip of crust off her bread, then starts to shred it. “Yours,” she says, so simply the word’s weight barely registers. 

Then it crashes through him, and he nearly _does_ start choking. “Mine?” he says. “But --” 

“ _Yours_.” Aloy's still shredding that crust. She’s smiling a little, though, and Erend forgets about everything except that sly curve of her mouth. "GAIA wants to meet you." 

A flash of memory lights up the inside of Erend’s head, an offhand reference Aloy made nearly a decade ago. “As in --” 

“Yeah.” A flush makes its way up Aloy’s throat. She’s still destroying her bread, and Erend’s tempted to say _Give it to me, I’ll treat it right,_  up until she pins him with her gaze. “GAIA, as in, part of Zero Dawn. Elisabet's Zero Dawn.” She swallows hard, her throat working. “It’s important to me. You're —" A particularly vicious twist of her fingers. "GAIA’s...important to me. Will you come?” 

There’s never been any other answer. “Yes,” Erend says, absurdly, stupidly pleased when Aloy’s hands stop their nervous movements and she lets out a little relieved sigh. “I mean, come on, secrets of the Old Ones? Dangerous journeys? How could I say no?” 

Right about now is where he’d say _But first, we need to talk to my priest_ , just to cap this off with a laugh, a good solid one, but maybe he’s finally cut that line, left the dreaming for when he’s asleep. 

He’s full of shit and he knows it, but he’ll delude himself a little longer. 

Aloy grins up at him, the pretty, hidden Nora girl peering out at him, not shy but maybe unsure, then she grabs his hand and squeezes. He turns his hand over in hers, squeezes back.

“I’ll have to talk to the Sun-King,” he says. “But it won’t be a problem. I mean, there’s barely enough work for me to do now. Trained the men too well. Take some time to figure out a successor, but — Aloy?” 

Her grin keeps growing. At this rate, he won’t be able to see anything else. His heart’s picking up, tripping a little, but he stays steady. 

She's not letting go. Even the dust motes falling through bars of sunlight go still. "Erend." 

He meets her eyes, thick, hot anger choking him for a brief second. _Why now_? he nearly shouts. _Why not seven years ago? I've been ready this whole time, so why_ now _? Right when I was done —_

Bullshit. He's never going to _be_ done, and he knows why it's now, and not one second before. He had to learn to be the kind of man _he_ could be proud of, not just the man trying to prove his sister right and their father wrong. Not just the kind of man a Nora huntress could see right through, from the beginning. 

Aloy had her own work, too, her own decisions — and it looks like she finally decided what she was looking for, all these years. If you'd have told him, seven years ago, it would have included him, he'd have laughed in your face and asked if he could have some of what you were drinking. 

And now — is he proud? Is his work here done? 

"Yeah," he says, in answer to her question, and his own. "I'm ready." 

She hooks her hand in the collar of his armor and waits for exactly two heartbeats before tugging him down. Her lips graze his in a kiss that’s almost too light to deserve the name, then she leans back, watching his face. 

"That's it?" he says, then holds up both hands as she leans back for the punch. "Kidding! Kidding. Mostly." 

Aloy gives him the world’s most exasperated look -- tragically, she's not the first woman to roll her eyes after kissing him, but he hopes she's damn well the last -- but doesn’t let go of his armor. And she’s smiling, too, fond and sweet and a little sad. “It’s not too late, is it?” she asks, the most unexpected words Erend has ever or will ever hear. “I didn’t...keep you waiting, too long? I’m sorry.”

He blinks at her, because she's _got_ to be joking. "I am insulted," he says, loftily as he can as his heart tries to kick its way through his ribs, "that you even have to ask, Aloy." 

Erend's as sure he deserves the punch as he's sure she pulls it, just a bit, at the last second, but then she kisses him again, mouth warm and pliant under his, and well, a man can be forgiven for losing the ability to think at a time like this. 

*** 

It's not just that he's proud of the man he is, Erend realizes, once the talking and the not-talking is done and Aloy is sprawled over his chest and dozing. He likes this man, the one who built, who protected, who waited. His father would hate him, Ersa would love him — but _he_ likes Erend: the Captain of the Vanguard, the builder of Meridian, and now, the explorer. 

Nothing could have happened a day sooner. He's finally what — finally _who_ — he's supposed to be

Aloy makes a quiet, huffy noise, and buries her face in his neck. Erend shuts his eyes, still grinning at the ceiling.

***

The road rolls out before them, narrowing to a thread and then disappearing into the pearl-grey mist at the bottom of the valley. 

“You ready?” Aloy asks, shifting her pack a little higher on her shoulders. 

Erend turns to the far side of the valley, where the dark green line of the forest barely pierces the mist. Another day’s walk, and they’ll leave every land he's ever known. Meridian is long out of sight, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever see it again. 

Now is a time to shut up and listen, so he does, and out of the mist comes the cry of a strange bird, sharp as new-forged steel. The only way to find out what it looks like is to start walking. 

“Yeah, I’m ready,” he says. 

Aloy grins, holds out her hand. As soon as Erend takes it, she takes the first step down the slope, and he follows, off the edge of the map, and beyond. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading. <3 Come talk to me on [Tumblr!](http://theherocomplex.tumblr.com)


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